Tozer earned a Master of Fine Arts in painting from the New York Academy of Art after receiving the prestigious Andy Warhol Scholarship. I can throw them a crumb and they just run with it. “We have some amazingly talented students. There’s nothing I’d rather do.” He equally enjoys teaching art. He’s preparing new work for a Groveland Gallery show in Minneapolis in 2023, where he has art for sale, and is wrapping up work with his students in two sections of Drawing 1 this semester. That’s why I’m an artist, the freedom,” he said, adding that the processes of creating a portrait and an abstract piece aren’t as dissimilar as they seem. “I try to do two different things in my work so I don’t get stuck in any one. After focusing on portraits before the show - including four-hour practice paintings of his son and daughter - during and after, he’s ready to take a break from them. He also regularly does abstract paintings. With the show having aired, he’s hearing from old friends, has picked up many more followers on his Instagram account and accepted an offer to teach an art workshop next summer on the coast of England. It was a good atmosphere, like the opposite of a competition,” he said. That was one of the best bits, meeting the other people. To do it is enough, let alone to beat someone else. “You’re doing a totally insane thing, painting a portrait in four hours on TV. The season 9 winner received a £10,000 commission ($12,150) to paint Sir Lenny Henry, an actor, singer and comedian, for London’s National Portrait Gallery. Tozer enjoyed the collegiality of painting with a variety of other artists, seeing their creative processes, and the out-of-the-box challenge that turned a generally solo pursuit into a mini-art festival. In the first round, McPherson also had his choice of the three (of eight) artists who painted him and chose Tozer’s. ![]() Ferguson was given her choice of one of the semifinalists’ paintings, and she chose Tozer’s. ![]() “It was kind of nice to keep everyone guessing until the end.”Īlthough he didn’t make the top three for the final show, he did leave with a bit of vindication. I use quite big brushes,” he said of putting the final touches on the face. “I thought, my God, I’m splitting the atom here. With the head being quite small, he had to make some very accurate final brush strokes. While some of the semifinalists worked from close-up photos on iPads that they took of Ferguson, Tozer painted what he saw - a figure more distant, one in which the face didn’t appear until the very end. It’s got to require something of me,” he said. I don’t trust it unless I’m struggling a bit. “I think in a way the second painting was better because I didn’t know what I was doing quite as much. However, he embraces struggle when he paints. Tozer said it was true in a sense because he didn’t like the colors of the set and Ferguson was about 25 feet away. One judge commented that Tozer, whose portrait of Ferguson for a while seemed a jumble of brush strokes, was struggling. ![]() Like in the first round, Tozer also had family in the small audience. It was held in London’s Battersea Arts Centre Grand Hall where everyone painted British singer Rebecca Ferguson, who took a seat looking royal in a green, sequined gown with a gold, purple and blue backdrop.Ĭameras, including a time-lapse above each artist, recorded their every brush stroke as judges moved around the room, talked with them and discussed their progress. In the midst of the spring semester at UW-Stout, he had to book another flight to England for the semifinal. While Tozer wasn’t totally pleased with the final product - he’d have tweaked the face with more time - he showed delight when making the cutdown from eight to three and then being named the heat winner. In Tozer’s first round, he painted a subject he was familiar with, Graham McPherson, also known as Suggs, lead singer for the British 1970s-1990s pop band Madness. Stout Vocational Rehabilitation Institute.Corporate Relations & Economic Engagement.
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